The Political Philosophy of Montaigne

A brilliant and original study.... Schaefer's study contains perhaps the best pages we have seen on Machiavelli and Montaigne, on 'Of Cannibals,' on the emulation of animals and the negation of the transcendent in the Essais; needless to say, its author has completely revolutionized the area of Montaigne's politics. No book that I have read in the last ten years has challenged my assumptions about the Essais more than this one.

This volume is the fruit of David Schaefer's long consideration of... the thought of Montaigne-its consistency, its power, and its pertinence to the foundation of the modern liberal order (including the state), to the academic political science practiced in the liberal university that is the image of that state, and to the suburb of the university called the French department. Schaefer's book presents to Montaigne studies a Montaigne that is more political and teacherly than private and self-savoring. To political science, it thrusts forward a Montaigne who is the cunning, consistent founder of liberal modernity. To the diverse and divided university of the present day, it may disclose a thinker whose thoughts are too unified to fit in any one department and too significant to be dubbed interdisciplinary.

David Schaefer's scholarly study of Montaigne's Essays is well written, ably argued, disciplined, and debatable. His close analysis is accompanied by critical consideration and evaluation of the theses of the principal historical and modern Montaigne interpretive studies.... Schaefer is to be heartily congratulated on his contribution, which no serious student in the field of Montaigne studies can hereafter ignore.

David Lewis Schaefer is Professor of Political Science at College of the Holy Cross. Among his other books are Freedom over Servitude and Illiberal Justice.